South West Co-Ordinators Meeting - Exeter - Saturday 22.01.2011

Dear Colleagues,
On Saturday 22nd January 2011, a meeting of Co-Ordinators in the South West Region took place at the St.Sidwell Centre in Exeter. We wish here to express our thanks for the attendance at this meeting of CThA Chairman Kush Kumar, who also chaired the meeting.
I give below some notes from the meeting, notwithstanding any additional material which may be circulated by our Regional Co-Ordinator, Angela Lewis. These notes are not intended as a full minute of the meeting, and are published for your information and interest.

Purpose of Meeting:- To develop an understanding of the role of Regional Co-Ordinators, and to update delegates on matters of national interest.
Following introductions, Kush provided us with guidelines on district meetings;
• Minimum of 5 meetings per year suggested.
• Suggested link into Adult Education centres, schools and colleges in relation to possible venues for meetings, networking and sharing professional experience with student therapists.
• Support from CThA in the form of headed letter sent from head office to arrange introductions to educational establishments (see above).
• Provision of corporate Powerpoint Presentation for use by co-ordinators.
• Suggested use of periodic newsletter as now in use in South West London.
• Co-Ordinators being urged to use the provided email facility which has been set up for them.

Kush then spoke of the various Regulatory bodies and outlined some work and liaison which continues with these on a regular basis. He emphasised that it is very much the choice of therapists as to whether they choose to join any of these bodies, and explained that above all, CThA are endeavouring to ensure that therapists have a strong voice at regulatory level, and that these bodies are encouraged to understand the role of therapists in working alongside statutory health provision, and accept the valuable experience from established therapists.

Kush outlined the role of Regional Co-Ordinators. Some points to note:
• Regional Co-Ordinators are there to help and support the districts.
• They should endeavour to attend at least one meeting per year in each of the districts for which they are responsible.
• They should receive news, views, ideas and questions from districts, and, if required pass these up to Head Office for advice, decisions etc.
• They will provide to head office, a report on a monthly basis, and District Co-Ordinators are asked to feed data to Regional Co-Ordinators to facilitate this report.
• They should collect and collate information for inclusion in the Embody Magazine.
• Regional Co-ordinators will be appraised annually by the Chairman.
• This role is in place to provide a point of contact and continuity for the organisation and thus help to drive up professional standards.
Finally, a general discussion took place involving all delegates. What I offer you from this meeting and discussion is this:
We are a national organisation and still spread quite thinly across the land. Communication is therefore vital to the future health of the CThA, its members, and the reputation of complementary healthcare with our colleagues in statutory health provision.
We need to note best practise. We need to evidence the efficacy of the wide range of therapies we practice, and we need to provide the chairman and his team with all the evidence we can in support of complementary treatments adding value to treatments offered in the statutory sector.

This was an extremely useful meeting, and one which deserves to be shared with as many members as possible.

Thank you Kush, for taking the time to come and speak with us. We were small in number, but our voice will be heard.